^8 
3 



EL 

74 
«95 




;fiii^^s^lllllHII 




V 



^c 



^c2e- 



c- 



cc. 



CyC-P^^ 



^ruaU^<yrL/^ 




aass_JLMi 
Book 



I 5 <i 5 



ORATION 



DELIVERED IJEFORE THE 



CITY COUNCIL AND CITIZENS 



BOSTON 



ONE HUNDRED AND NINETEENTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 

JULY 4, 1895 



Rev. ADOLPH AUGUSTUS BERLE 



[Document 155 — 1895] 



^fy 1(6 SO. ^W 



BOSTON 
PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE CiTY COUNCIL 

1895 



ORATION 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



CITY COUNCIL AND CITIZENS 



BOSTON 






ONE HUNDRED AND NINETEENTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 

JULY 4, 189s 

■ BY 

Rev. ADOlfe AUGUSTUS BERLE 

[Document 155 — 1895] 




BOSTON 

PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE CiTY COUNCIL 

1895 






CITY OF BOSTON 



In Board of Aldekmen, July 15, 1895. 
Resolved^ That the thanks of the City Council be and 
hereby are extended to Rev. Adolph A. Beele for the 
eloquent and patriotic oration delivered by him on the 
Fourth of July, in commemoration of the One Hundred 
and Nineteenth Anniversary of American Independence, 
and that he be requested to furnish a copy of the same 
for publication. 

Adopted unanimously by a rising vote. Sent down for 

concurrence. 

Alpheus Sanford, 

Chairman. 

In Common Council, September 19, 1895. 
Concurred unanimously by a rising vote. 

Christopher F. O'Brien, 

President. 

Approved September 20, 1895. 

Edwin U. Curtis, 

Mayor. 

A true copy. 

Attest : 

John M. Galvin, 

City Clerk. 



THE CONSTITUTION AND THE CITIZEN. 



Me. Mayor axd Fellow-Citizen^s : 

Once again in accordance with a wise custom 
established many years ago we are assembled by 
the authority and appointment of the city of Bos- 
ton to celebrate the birthday of onr beloved nation. 
Full of gratitude to Almighty God for the bless- 
ings which we have received with such un- 
bounded liberality from His hand in the past, we 
seek anew, in the obedience to Him who is the 
Arbiter of all destiny, to still further work out 
our national life with fear and trembling, God 
working in us both to will and do of His good 
pleasure. 

We have listened to the reading of the Declaration 
of Independence, and out of that utterance offered 
to the world as the Magna Charta of our liberties, on 
July 4, 1776, has come the union of States which 
we love and cherish to-day. It was a masterful 
statement. It had within it all the promise and 
possibility of the nation as yet unborn. Its very 



6 ORATION. 

language thrillGd with the fiery zeal and enthusi- 
astic devotion of those whose sentiments it 
expressed. It was the consmnmation of the long 
tutelage of the Anglo-Saxon under pohtical 
systems which sought the elevation of the citizen 
as the potent political unit of government. It 
was heard with wonder when fii-st proclaimed. 
It survives as our most glorious heritage. 

But we shall be deceived if we imao-iue that the 
issuing of the Declaration of Independence created 
the United States of America. We shall build 
upon a false foundation if we argue that it gave 
us anything more than an impulse in the direction 
of a national movement. That declaration was in 
the line of the movement for a larger liberty, 
which was everyAvhere making itself felt, not in 
America alone, but also and as effectively in 
Europe. It was true to the Age-Spirit, and only 
occasion was needed to call for its annunciation. 
It breathed an atmosphere of hberty and human 
rights which was not new but only not yet fully 
accepted. It was a theoretical document in its 
essence, and in so far as stable government was 
concerned, it could hardly produce it. Declara- 
tions of Independence move the hearts and lire the 
com^age of men, but governments are not founded 
upon them. 



JULY4,1895. 4 

In support of this statement we have only to 
recall the history subsequent to the War of the 
Revolution. The Ai'tieles of Confederation under 
which tlie united colonies carried on their war for 
freedom constituted the loosest kmd of a tie, only 
fii'm enough to hold them together when in the 
midst of the stress and necessity of war. But the 
moment peace was declared and the constructive 
work of national existence began, what do we 
find? iSTot a union of the people, but a mere vol- 
untary confederation of States which could be 
broken at will, as it was broken, and vesting its 
functions of control in a body which is distin- 
guished in our history chiefly by its pitiful record 
of impotency, ignorance, and selfishness. The 
" United States in Congress Assembled " was no 
more the representative body wluch to-day gathers 
for the enactment of laws under om- Constitution 
than the handful of strugglers for liberty in the 
early days of the 'Wav of the Revolution consti- 
tuted in any proper sense an arm3^ 

A government then remained still to be estab- 
lished. But before we examine the instriunent, the 
acceptance of which created our nation a govern- 
ment, let us look at the period just preceding the 
constitutional convention which met at Philadelphia 
in 1787. Scarcely was peace declared than a 



8 ' ORATION. 

strange metamorphosis began in the personal qual- 
ity of the ruling authonities of the Confederation. 
The most efficient leaders and the wisest and 
most thoughtful citizens began to be absent from 
the national councils, preferring, as it appears, 
rather to serve their individual States than the so- 
called general government. Both Washington and 
JeflPerson commented on this fact, and the latter 
even wrote a letter urging that " young states- 
men" be sent to Congress in order that they 
might be properly trained for the future needs 
of the nation. American citizenship at that period 
seemed to centre more around the idea of loyalty 
to the State than loyalty to the nation, and for 
the most part justifiably, for there was in reality 
no nation as yet in existence. 

Yainly did the far-seeing Father of his Country 
endeavor to convince Congress of its duties in the 
direction of a closer and more efficient union. 
Vainly did the most earnest patriots by voice and 
pen urge the necessity of prompt action to save 
the infant Republic from dissolution. Without the 
slightest interest did Congress see the vicissitudes 
of a treasury which had no means of securing a 
revenue. Or funds being in hand, promptly did 
they vote themselves salaries, while the army 
waited for its slender pay. The service of the 



JULY 4, 1805. 9 

nation was too contemptible for the most able, 
and not lucrative enough even for the incom- 
petent. Credit the nation had but little, and that 
only because some of the States themselves had 
considerable. Appeal after appeal was made, and 
each time without any apparent result. If by any 
circumstance Congress was roused to action, it 
had no power to enforce its demands. It waited 
like a beggar at the table of the sovereign States. 
"Well might Randolph call it, as in fact it was, 
a " government of supplication." 

ISTor were the difficulties of the administration 
all that the young nation had to contend with. 
England seeing the disorganization prevailing 
looked confidently to see enacted, by internal dis- 
sension, what she could not accomplish by force 
of arms. Trade and commerce began to vex the 
various States both as regarded their intercourse 
between themselves as well as that with foreign 
countries. Tariff barriers were erected between 
them. Lack of uniformity with reference to 
foreign commerce added to the natural irritations 
of competition. Ah-eady the Southern agricult- 
urahsts and the ]^orthern manufacturers were 
contending for their various interests. Business 
success and prosperity were, under such conditions, 
manifestly impossible. Widespread depression fol- 



10 ORATION. 

lowed, and though the more cheerful and opti- 
mistic tried to disguise to themselves the actual 
condition of the land, the facts were only too real 
in their practical effect. 

Still another danger threatened. There was no 
stable, if indeed there can be said to have existed 
any, national currency. The question of money 
was ever present. Robert Morris went out of 
the treasury announcing his inability to raise in- 
terest on foreign loans. In the States the battle 
between specie and paper money raged almost 
incessantly, now the one side and then the other 
triumphant. Rhode Island, always the most selfish 
and intractable of States, made it a penal offence 
to refuse paper at par; but a vigorous citizen 
butcher carried the case to the courts, and won 
a signal victory for honest money. This, too, 
was patriotism. Thus on every side wei-e the 
clamors heard of States rights, of individual lib- 
erties, of fear of monarchy, of trade depression, 
of monetary wranghng, while the complacent 
mother country steadily shipped her felons to our 
shores to swell our criminal population, and 
looked forward to the day when she would again 
possess the land. 

It was in this strait that it began to dawn 
upon the people that declarations do not make 



JULY4,1895. 11 

nations ; that national stiength rests npon loy- 
alty to the whole and not loyalty to a part ; 
that dearly as Sam Adams loved Massachnsetts 
he mnst love the United States more. That true 
to ]!Srew York as her governor, George Clinton, 
was, he mnst be trner still to the JSTational 
Union. It was this dawning consciousness, aided, 
it mnst be confessed, very materially by the 
events of the honr, that led finally to the calling 
of a constitntional convention first at Annapolis 
and afterward at Philadelphia. 

The history of the Philadelphia convention is 
so well known that I need not to-day recall to 
yon any of the almost insurmountable difficulties 
which it encountered in its own membership ; of 
the despair which at least once overcame even 
the optimistic Franklin and moved him to call 
for the invocation of Divine aid in the delibera- 
tions. It is sufficient for our purpose liere that 
it gave birth to the Constitution of the United 
States. The national feeling and spirit had seen 
the light. The nation was crystallized and a 
government, in fact, was born. But not at once 
even then. There were long struggles still. The 
Massachusetts Legislature rang with the earnest 
protests of Sam Adams against the proposed in- 
strument ; by a most slender majoiity, and then 



12 ORATION. 

only after the mighty battle in which Hamilton 
and Jay and Madison and other Federalists did 
valiant work, was 'New York bronght to endorse- 
ment. All the States after more or less of 
struggle were brought in, only the little fractious 
and spiteful Rhode Island declining. But the 
end came at last, and the year saw the Con- 
stitution accepted and in force as the organic 
law and iinal source of authority for the people 
of the United States without respect of State or 
station. 

]!^ot that the Constitution was itself a perfect 
document. It was, even in the opinion of those 
who created it and loved it, as men can only 
love their own offspring, imperfect in many de- 
tails. It invited difficulty and controversy. It 
practically dodged or surrendered the issue of 
slavery, but it was, humanly spealdng, the best 
instrument that out of the combined wisdom 
and patriotism of the framers, and these joined 
to the natural difficulties of the situation itself, 
could be produced ; and there it stands to-day, 
the pride and the safeguard of every citizen, be- 
cause it came from a union of citizens and not 
from a union of States. This is what links the 
humblest citizen directly with the supreme law 
of the land. Our union was henceforth to be a 



JULY4,1895. 13 

union of people, a fraternity of citizens having 
the majesty of the combined personaUty of 
millions of freemen, rather than a contract signed 
under duress to be broken when the arm of 
force was withdrawn. 

There is something sublime in the thought 
which I have just presented, suggesting that the 
Constitution is something more than a formal 
alliance partaking of the nature of a contract. 
One remembers, then, not its language or the 
provisions of its various sections, but the man- 
hood, the wisdom, the unselfish love of country, 
the patient labor and the anxious waiting which 
are here congealed, as it were, into a solid 
structm-e of adamant. As buildings suggest 
the character of their architects, as pictures 
reveal to the practised eye the personality of 
the painter, so the book or the treatise presents 
to the man of insight the life of him whose 
brain worked through its doctrines, and shaped 
the form of their expression. Thus, to say that 
this or that is constitutional is more than to 
say that it shall legally stand ; it is as though 
one should say. This has behind it the force, the 
majesty, the patriotism, the unselfishness of all 
true citizenship from the foundation of our gov- 
ernment until to-day. It is as though one should 



14 ORATION. 

announce, with the subhme confidence of one 
who had himself inherited their noble blood, 
This is the life of the founders living in us 
their children. 

The Constitution, then, being the crystallized 
and combined personaHty of the citizens by whose 
adoption it became the supreme law of the land, 
its authority and dignity can be preserved only 
as it continues to represent the combined per- 
sonahty of the citizens who live under its sway. 
It thus becomes strangely true that the Consti- 
tution is in a measure the citizen, and also that 
the citizen is the Constitution. If for any reason 
or through any cause the organic law fails to 
represent the united personality of the people or 
a very large majority thereof, it is as truly 
null and void as though it had been abrogated 
by foraial vote. The maintenance of the Con- 
stitution of the United States is not therefore a 
duty which can be delegated to public officers, 
but an ever-present obligation resting upon every 
citizen in the land without any reference what- 
ever to his station, creed, or possessions. No 
man can ever become great enough to justly 
neo-lect it, and no man can ever become mean 
enough, without dishonor, to be deprived of it. 
The Constitution represents men, and when it 



J U L Y 4 , 1 8 9 5 . 15 

ceases to represent them truly, it ceases to be 
their source of civic rule. 

For more than a century now we have Kved 
under a constitutional government, and have made 
the exceptional and striking progress which is 
the never-ending source of wonder to the world. 
We have passed through many trials of depres- 
sion, war, and disunion, but have survived them 
all. More marvellously than any romancer could 
have imagined it, have we grown in size, wealth, 
population, capability, civilization, and national 
power. We have l^een able to confound the 
mighty by our almost unheard-of defiance of the 
operations of natural law. We have been able 
to make blunders which, if made by any other 
nation, would probably have resulted in its 
complete ruin. We have been able apparently 
to conduct our national household on a scale 
which has led to a reckless extravagance for 
which no bounds can apparently be set. We 
have conducted our finances, our commerce, our 
education, our public ser^dce, by methods and 
with wastes that almost take us into the realms 
of fairyland when their combined figures are 
studied. But we are still here as a nation, and 
prosperous and still advancing. But it must be 
obvious to even the most modestly trained 



16 ORATION. 

thouorhtfnl citizen that onr resources cannot last 
forever; that we must sooner or later come to a 
realizing sense of our situation and the duties 
which it enforces upon us. More than this, we 
must begin to see to it that the expensive, dan- 
gerous errors of the past shall not recur to 
jfinally weaken our national system and destroy 
our institutions. 

As our civilization and laws grow more com- 
plex, it is becoming needful to appeal more and 
more frequently to the Constitution for settle- 
ment of the new questions which are arising 
among us. Within the year past we have seen 
the Supreme Court ruhng upon three questions 
of utterly dissimilar character, and yet each one 
full of suggestive thought for the future. One 
of these related to the income tax, another re- 
lated to the question of election registration, the 
third had to do with the question of habeas 
cor])us growing out of the Chicago strike. These 
are all significant matters. All three have one 
point in common; namely, that they deal per- 
sonally with the individual citizen: the first, as 
to his money; the second, as to his vote; and 
the third, as to his person; and on each of 
these questions we have had a decision. The 
circumstances out of which these questions grew 



JULY 4, 1895. 17 

are interesting in the accompanying demonstra- 
tions wliicli they evoked. 

It is not for me to discnss to-day questions 
upon which we have the right and privilege of 
differences of judgment ; but I may with pro- 
priety venture to examine some of tlie general 
principles which seem to be involved in these 
decisions. Take first the decision of the Supreme 
Court with reference to the tax on incomes. 
Here we have a most singular fact to record. 
What is recognized as a right, proper, and just 
subject of taxation, a wise method of raising the 
necessary revenue, of half the civilized govern- 
ments of the world, is here pronounced impossi- 
ble and is forbidden. Does it not strike you as 
strange, that what England and France and Ger- 
many and Italy and Australia and many other 
nations practise as a habitual method of taxation 
should here be unconstitutional and void ? I say 
it without any hesitation whatever, that if the 
Constitution does not permit the taxation of 
incomes, then the Constitution ought to be 
modified so that it will so permit. And why? 
^LSTothing in our land is more menacing than the 
increasing power of accmnulated wealth. "We 
have seen great corporations invade the private 
rights of citizens with an abandon that would 



18 OEATION. 

seem to be incredible if we had not become 
habituated to the wrong. We have seen Legis- 
latures corrupted, and it is notorious that in 
some States vast sums have been expended to 
be used in influencing the choice of members of 
the United States Senate. We have repeatedly 
seen the interests of the people over-ridden in 
order that the selfish ends of private j^ersons 
might be secured. Is it any wonder that the 
millions are misled into the hope of freedom by 
a debased currency? When creditor and debtor 
classes are arrayed against each other, and we see 
a governor of a Western State calling for a con- 
ference of other governors in the South and West 
with a view of combining commercially against 
the East, is it cowardice to ask what that 
symptom means? When within a month of each 
other two great voluntary assemblies of citizens 
meet in the same city to urge upon their fellow- 
citizens two diametrically opposed platforms with 
reference to the financial policy of the govern- 
ment, is it pessimism to inquire what is mov- 
ing these people? I venture to say that at the 
bottom of all this agitation is simply the deep 
resentment among the people of all classes of 
thoughtful men of the fact that money is operat- 
ing too efiectively against the common interests. 



JULY4,1895. 19 

Great accumulations of capital and tlie fearful 
neglect of the obligations which such possession 
imposes have deepened the consciousness of our 
people that somewhere there is something wrong. 
It is at this juncture, too, that the Supreme 
Court declares the tax on incomes unconstitu- 
tional. It may be, and probably is. But I say 
it solemnly that with the example and habitual 
practice of most of the civilized nations of the 
world before us, that tax ought to be made con- 
stitutional without the slightest delay. Wealth 
and the power that goes with wealth are great 
trusts, and w^hoever, having them, cannot see 
that he is a trustee for the common good in 
these things should be made to render up at least 
a fair proportion of his income as a just com- 
pensation for the protection and security which 
the authority of the government under which the 
.wealth accumulates provides. It is absurd to 
declare such a tax Avrongful. If there were no 
other argument in the world before us, the estab- 
lished habit of other nations and the manifest 
justice of this means of providing revenue would 
be sufficient to induce us to make such a method 
at least possible. Added thereto, our constant 
experience with the power of perverted wealth 
should silence all remaining doubts. 



20 ORATION. 

The doctrine which we seek to inculcate here 
is not, as is sometimes alleged falsely, that the 
prosperous are to be taxed in the interest and 
for the benefit of the hstless and indolent. It 
is rather the idea that the strong ought to bear 
the burdens of the weak, and that those who 
make the largest draft upon the protective power 
of the government should bear the largest pro- 
portion of the expense incurred in maintaining 
that protection. It is the fair recognition of the 
maxim that to whom much is given of him 
will much be required. But we teach more than 
this. We teach that wealth carries with it vast 
responsibihties which are fraught with deepest 
consequences to the people at large; that public 
servants should not be subjected to temptations 
which will almost certainly overcome them; that 
private interests shall not stand in the way of 
humane progress, that life, and liberty, and 
human happiness shall be respected as belonging 
equally to all, and that the hardships of life 
shall not be made to bear unjustly upon those 
least favored; in brief, in the interest of a larger 
humanity, we proclaim that the man of wealth 
owes peculiar duties, and is placed in circum- 
stances of especial obhgation, to his fellow-citizens 
and his country. Public officials, legislatures, and 



JULY 4, 1895. 21 

even courts themselves must be guarded with a 
strenuousness that cannot be too watchful. From 
wealth selfishly administered, and against the 
common good, arises their chiefest and most 
pressing danger. And though a Supreme Court 
decision may relieve the rich from the legal bur- 
dens imposed by law, it can never release them 
from the moral obligation which possession and 
opportunity create. 

In the case of the South Carolina election 
cases we have another form of the same ques- 
tion of the citizen's relation to the Constitution. 
The deprivation of the ballot is probably the 
severest loss which can come to a citizen of the 
United States. Take from him that and he is 
lost to his country. And whoever conspires to 
thus deprive any citizen to whom the right of 
suffrage is granted by the Constitution, strikes 
directly and at once at the foundation of the 
rule of law in the land. It is probable that 
this was attempted in South Carolina under the 
election laws which have recently occupied the 
attention of the Chief Justice of the Supreme 
Court. It differed from the conventional methods 
which have the picturesque accompaniments of 
shotgun and mob, but it was none the less, in 
all probability, an attempt to disfranchise citizens 



22 ORATION. 

to whom the Constitution had secured the right 
of suffrage. All the land is filled with indigna- 
tion at this wrong and others like it. 

But while we are indignant, and justly indig- 
nant, at any attempt to deprive the citizen of his 
ballot by force or fraud, even when under the 
forms of law, what shall we say of him who, 
having the franchise, never or rarely exercises it 
for the welfare of his country, in settling the 
grave issues which confront us at almost every 
turn of our varied national existence ? Can any 
man be truly patriotic who never registers? or 
when he registers never votes ? Who is more 
culpable, he who, having the right of suffi-age, 
tries to withhold it from those whom he considers 
incompetent to hold it, in the interest of what he 
considers good government, or he who, having 
it, fails to value it, thus confirming the rule of 
the ignorant, depraved, and vicious? If the Con- 
stitution represents the combined personality of 
citizens, then these are kindred evils before the 
bar of patriotic devotion and fidelity. In either 
case the sufli-age is abridged, the difi"erence 
being that one employs illegal means to suppress 
an ignorant and probably purchasable vote, 
while the other selects legal means in suppress- 
ing what is for the most part an intelligent and 



JULY 4, 1895. 23 

non-purchasable vote. In either case votes are 
suppressed, and thus much of the citizenship, 
though needful to express the whole personality 
which is wrapped up in the Constitution, is lost 
to the use of the nation. ]!^on-voting citizens, 
then, stand in the same relation to the whole 
nation, barring the legal consequences of crune, as 
do the regulators of the South, shotgun in hand. 
In Boston particularly, and in Massachusetts as 
a whole, this robbery is constantly practised. 
Using to the full the privileges which our 
country affords, and bending their energies to 
the accumulation of money and the laying up of 
vast fortunes, it is not strange that there should 
be a suspicious resemblance between the non- 
voting and the tax-dodging population, as well 
as between the absentees and the money cor- 
ruptionists of our political contests. 

What we have affirmed of the citizen's money 
is equally true of the citizen's vote. It is his 
own, and yet not his own. He may use it as he 
will, and yet he must use it for the common good, 
remembering that it is not a natural right which 
belongs to him, but a privilege which is conferred 
upon him, in the expectation that he will use 
it wisely, patriotically, and conscientiously. The 
highest law in the land is constantly appeahng to 



24 ORATION. 

him, saying, I rest upon yoii and your fidelity. 
When yon are false I am the sufferer. 

ISTo one who is at all acquainted with the 
temper and feeling of our citizenship can doubt 
that for the most part it is sound and truth- 
loving. It wants honesty and fairness. It loves 
law and hates mobs. It believes in righteousness, 
personal as well as civic. It honors courage and 
fidehty. It delights to give its best gifts to those 
who deserve them most. But it is a fact at the 
same time that conditions are maturing which 
constantly make for the average citizen entangling 
alliances, which obscure his moral sense, and make 
him do that which he would rather not do, and 
take upon himself burdens and pursue methods to 
which he is at heart thoroughly and conscien- 
tiously opposed. Business considerations, social 
obligations, political distinctions, and race preju- 
dices, all conspire to take him away from the 
simplicity which would naturally govern him 
were he free and untrammelled. The fij'st neces- 
sity of our pohtical system is to make the citizen 
free ; to apply all laws without respect of per- 
sons ; and to impress upon all that justice will be 
administered and that the welfare of the lowest 
and poorest will be held as sacred as that of the 
highest and richest. Our citizenship must be 



JULY4,1895. 25 

made free. It must be able to vote and speak 
fearlessly and with no regard for personal con- 
sequences. Only a free man can be a worthy 
citizen of a free country. Bondage is servitude 
though it be in terms of commercial slavery or 
financial obligation. Thus many flee from the 
ballot because they cannot exercise it as they 
would. Others, having been delivered to the lust 
of wealth, dare not appear on the lists. Still 
others skulk behind a false philosophy. Let it be 
rung into the ears of these all that he who robs 
the country of his political judgment, especially in 
times of the country's need, is a bandit more to be 
feared than he who steals its money. Like those 
timid, time-serving politicians who, aspiring for the 
highest office in the land, seek refuge in ambi- 
guities and silence, when a mass of deluded people 
need the statesmanlike utterance of a bold, brave, 
lover of truth, who dare not by words fitly 
spoken place the apples of gold in the baskets 
of silver, so these, too, are the selfish sneaks who 
seek to enjoy what they cannot achieve, and filch 
from the labors of others the benefits which their 
OAvn toil should in part supply. 

The great Chicago strike and the riots which 
attended it are still fresh in memory. More 
damaging and destructive than many of the so- 



26 ORATION. 

called battles of oiir Civil War, it well illustrates 
the effect of our democratic life and institutions 
upon minds of a certain type. It is the reign 
and regard for law which distinguishes civiliza- 
tion from savagery. Whenever, therefore, there is 
a resort to destruction as argument, it is to that 
extent a lapse into the barbarism from which we 
are supposed, in part at least, to have emerged. 
In this difficulty we beheld the power of a single 
individual as truly declaring war against the 
federal government as was the firing on Sumter. 
We saw the mails of the United States blockaded 
with an abandon which showed as little concep- 
tion of the relation of the citizen to the fun- 
- damental law of the land as it is well possible 
to imagine. And not only so, but we saw the 
chief executive of the State in which this riot 
occurred, which had for its manifest and declared 
object the literal overturning of the conditions of 
civilized life in the country, until certain demands 
should be met, openly denouncing the comman- 
der-in-chief of the armies of the United States 
for the exercise of his duty in sending troops to 
the spot to quell as real a rebellion as ever took 
place on American soil. 

The seceding States at least contended that 
they had a constitutional right to withdraw from 



JULY4,1895. 27 

the Umon. These rebels took no cognizance of 
the Constitution at all. The ordinaiy rights of 
citizens, the privilege of pursuing one's lawful 
vocation unmolested, the natural and necessary in- 
tercourse between the people of the land by the 
only means of intercommunication at hand, were 
forcibly and with a positively sul)lime defiance of 
simple hmnanity trampled upon by a leader of a 
mob who, strangely enough, was also able to 
muster thousands of citizens of the country to 
cooperate with him in his rebellious and lawless 
enterprise. The ordinary guarantees of the Con- 
stitution were here simply dropped out of sight. 
The demands of the strikers were, with them, the 
first and the only consideration. 

We may well question Avithin ourselves what the 
tendency of democracy is if this is to be one of 
its characteristic products. JN^or does this example 
stand alone. In the East, as well as in the West, 
we have seen the military arm of the country re- 
storing order. What do these things mean ? They 
indicate simply that we have been declaring rights 
so long that we have forgotten that rights also 
suggest duties, and that he who would enjoy the 
blessings of hberty and the institutions of demo- 
cratic life must be willing, nay, must resolve as 
his solemn purpose, to help, aid, and assist in the 



28 ORATION. 

maintenance of that freedom by fidelity to every 
public obligation which the State shall mipose upon 
him. Unrighteous though they be, statutes are 
still laws, and as such they must be obeyed. 
Political wrongs have pohtical remedies, and for 
wrongs of equity we may still confidently rely that 
the incorrupt courts of om- land will supply ample 
and speedy justice. Thus the person as well as 
the thought of the citizen is his country's, and 
when the call of duty comes he must be ready to 
spring to her rescue from destructive influences, 
whether these originate from one cause or 
another. 

The reign of lawlessness in America within the 
past year has probably furnished to the world 
better evidence of the weakness of republicanism 
than the most deep-rooted prejudices of the Old 
World monarchies could possibly have invented, 
and it is a perfectly fair inference that the con- 
flicts at Chicago and Brookljai, the revealed cor- 
ruptness of the 'New York police force, and similar 
disclosures, have not only damaged om^ own land 
in reputation, but have stayed for years the prog- 
ress of other nations toward a larger personal 
hberty. If the foremost republic of the world, 
with all the manhood and power and resources 
which are hers, shall, after a hundred years of 



JULY4,1895. 29 

experience, show forth these as the results of a free 
civihzation which rests upon the personal loyalty 
and individual fidelity of the citizen to the supreme 
law of the country, then it may well be questioned 
whether the time for the extension of democracy 
has come. Side by side with our splendid Exposi- 
tion, wherein we demonstrated how quickly our 
young nation could rival the older nations in com- 
merce, industry, and the arts, we have also shown 
that we have as an integral part of our national 
thought a lack of national unity and loyalty, and 
an absence of interest in and respect for authority, 
which is at best discouraging. 

But there is an encouraging feature, and it 
may well be claimed to be the most imjiortant 
achievement of our century of national existence; 
namely, that we have now so thoroughly inte- 
grated the Constitution of the United States into 
the law of the various States, that more and 
more the tendency of our people will be to 
look at all questions involving careful political 
judgment and a high seuse of political loyalty 
from the truly national standpoint. The supremacy 
of the Constitution then will appear more and 
more, not in that it stands as a final test, but 
in that it will be becoming more and more the 
integral law of the States as well. Such in fact 



30 ORATION. 

it already is, only that the increasing sense of 
public duty among citizens will fix the fact 
deeper in the consciousness of the people at 
large. In addition hereto the vice of our present 
mode of legislation, which makes our Congress- 
men not legislators for the nation, but private 
agents for their constituencies, will be overcome, 
and the sectional prejudices and interests, whether 
of silver or industrial tariffs, will give way to a 
healthy and patriotic consideration of the welfare 
of the nation as a whole. 

Another and important effect which the recogni- 
tion of personal obligation to sustain the national 
law and character in the exercise of the suffrage 
of citizenship will secure, will be the elevation 
of the public service both at home and abroad. 
The appointment of the nation will be honorable 
enough to attract to the public offices those who 
are able to give to their administration a dignity 
and character which will adequately sustain and 
enhance the national ideals. Our ministers at 
home and our ambassadors abroad will not be 
men merely who have exhibited strength in 
political campaigns, but scholars and gentlemen 
who have earned laurels in the circles and in the 
occupations which require high culture, liberal 
education, and sterling character. Our consular 



JULY4,1895. 31 

service will feel the impulse and take on more of 
character and capacity. The civil service through- 
out the land will be elevated both in personal 
quality and fitness for its duties, and we shall 
achieve something like business du*ectness in 
government. 

Only a day or two ago we saw a marvellous 
pageant of the warships of nations assembling to 
celebrate the opening of the new Ivaiser Wilhelm 
canal at Kiel. When we remember that but a 
single appropriation was made for that great feat 
of engineering skill, and that the work was com- 
pleted with a balance of the appropriation still 
in hand, and the canal opened upon the day 
appointed when the work was begun, and then 
reflect upon the contrast furnished by our land 
in the similar undertakings, the State House at 
Albany being a conspicuous example, we cannot 
but feel that we have much to learn in the science 
of good government. But good government can- 
not be secured without the cooperation of every 
citizen, and the most earnest activity of the indi- 
vidual conscience in the conduct of public afi:airs. 
It is the citizen, with his brain and heart ahve to 
the duties by which he must uphold his country's 
honor and reputation, upon whom this burden 
rests. He mnst give his government his own 
personality, his conscience crowning all. 



32 ORATION. 

We see, then, how intimate under our system 
of government is the relation of each individual 
to the welfare of the whole as represented in 
the maintenance of the law of the land, and the 
just and conscientious discharge of public duty. 
"We have not been following will-o'-the wisps of 
abstract theory or seeking unpractical ideals, but 
have been enforcing this relationship from concrete 
facts drawn from our current life as a people. 
Many and grave are the moral considerations 
which should deeply impress upon us all the 
necessity for a prompt and generous response 
to the new civic movement which is everywhere 
springing into existence. At best our eiforts 
must be within a contracted sphere, and the issue 
after all is not ours, but humanity's and God's. 
" Man," says Yictor Hugo, " is neither master of 
his life nor of his fate. He can but offer to 
his fellow-men his eiforts to diminish human suffer- 
ing:; he can but offer to God his indomitable faith 
in the growth of Liberty." These, in the large 
generous sense in which we are accustomed to 
think out our American life and purpose, consti- 
tute the aim of American citizenship, — to diminish 
suffering and to promote liberty through faith. 
On the one hand there must be a growing sense 
of the inter-dependence of all, and on the other 



JULY4,1895. 33 

a fixed belief that we shall ultimately triumph in 
the midst of all our perplexities, and come off 
conquerors in the battle for human rights and 
freedom under law. We shall not in the ordi- 
nary course of affairs be exempt from the mis- 
takes which come to all positive strivers for the 
truth, we shall not forego the hardships attendant 
upon all pioneering in the fields of hmnan prog- 
ress and helpfulness, but we shall be linked 
through it all, suffering and delight, victory and 
defeat, to the idea of a lofty attempt toward a 
perfected humanity which shall endure as long 
as the race remains upon the earth. We have 
made a determined stand for liberty, and have 
secured it. Let us make an equally brave stand 
for unity, and secure that also. Through indi\id- 
ual peculiarities of race, lineage, character, and 
attainments, let us see the grand composite of 
the American ideal working out in a sublime 
devotion to the common good. 



A LIST 



BOSTON MUNICIPAL ORATORS. 



By C. W. ERNST. 



BOSTON ORATORS. 

Appointed by the Municipal Authorities. 



For the Anniversary of the Boston Massacre^ March 5, 1770. 

Note. — The Fifth-of -March orations were published in handsome quarto editions, now 
very scarce; also, collected in book form, in 1785, and again in 1807. The oration of 1776 
was delivered in Watertown. 

1771. — Lovell, James. 

1772. — Warren, Joseph. 

1773. — Church, Benjamin. 

1774. — Hancock, John.^ 

1775. — Warren, Joseph. 

1776. — Thacher, Peter. 

1777. — Highborn, Benjamin. 

1778. — Austin, Jonathan Williams. 

1779. — Tudor, William. 

1780. — Mason, Jonathan, Jun. 

1781. — Dawes, Thomas, Jun. 

1782. — MiNOT, George Richards. 
1783. — Welsh, Thomas. 



For the Anniversary of National Independence, July 4, 1776. 

Note. — A collected edition, or a full collection, of these orations has not been made. 
For the names of the orators, as officially printed on the title pages of the orations, see 
the Municipal Register of 1890. 

1783. — Warren, John.^ 

1784. — Highborn, Benjamin. 



» Reprinted in Newport, R.I., 1774, 8vo, 19 pp. 

1 Reprinted in Warren's Life. The orations of 1783 to 1786 were published in large 
quarto; the oration of 1787 appeared in octavo; the oration of 178S was printed in small 
quarto; all succeeding orations appeared in octavo, with the exceptions stated under 1863 
and 1876. 



38 APPENDIX. 

1785. — Gardiner, John. 

1786. — Austin, Jonathan Loring. 

1787. — Dawes, Thomas, Jun. 

1788. — Otis, Harrison Gray. 

1789. — Stillman, Samuel. 

1790. — Gray, Edward. 

1791. — Crafts, Thomas, Jun. 

1792. — Blake, Joseph, Jun.'* 

1793. — Adams, John Quincy.* 

1794. — Phillips, John. 

1795. — Blake, George. 

1796. — Lathrop, John, Jun. 

1797. — Callender, John. 

1798. — quincy, josiah.^' ^ 

1799. — Lowell, John, Jun.^ 

1800. — Hall, Joseph. 

1801. — Paine, Charles. 

1802. — Emerson, William. 

1803. — Sullivan, William. 

1804. — Danforth, Thomas.^ 

1805. — Button, Warren. 

1806. — Channing, Francis Dana. 

1807. — Thacher, Peter.'- ' 

1808. — Ritchie, Andrew, Jun.' 

1809. — Tudor, William, Jun.' 

1810. — Townsend, Alexander. 

1811. — Savage, James.' 



2 Passed to a second edition. * 

* Delivered another oration in 1826. Quincy's oration of 1798 was reprinted, also, in 
Philadelphia. 

^ Not printed. 

'' On February 26, 1811, Peter Thacher's name was changed to Peter Oxenbridge 
Thacher. (List of Persons whose Names have been Changed in Massachusetts, 1780-1892, 
p. 21.) 



APPENDIX. 39 

1812. — Pollard, Benjamin." 

1813. — LivERMORE, Edward St. Loe. 

1814. — Whitwell, Benjamin. 

1815. — Shaw, Lemuel. 

1816. — Sullivan, George.* 

1817. — Channing, Edward Ttrrel. 

1818. — Gray, Francis Galley. 
1819. — Dexter, Franklin. 

1820. — Lyman, Theodore, Jun, 

1821. — LoRiNG, Charles Greely.'' 

1822. — Gray, John Chipman. 

1823. — Curtis, Charles Pelham.'^ 

1824. — Bassett, Francis. 

1825. — Sprague, Charles.* 

1826. — QuiNCY, Josiah.' 

1827. — Mason, William Powell. 

1828. — Sumner, Bradford. 

1829. — Austin, James Trecothick. 

1830. — Everett, Alexander Hill. 
1831. — Palfrey, John Gorham. 

1832. — QuiNCY, JosiAH, Jun. 

1833. — Prescott, Edward Goldsborough. 

1834. — Fay, Richard Sullivan. 

1835. — HiLLARD, George Stillman. 

1836. — Kinsman, Henry Willis. 

1837. — Chapman, Jonathan. 

1838. — WiNSLOW, Hubbard. " The Means of the Per- 

petuit}^ and Prosperity of our Republic." 

1839. — Austin, Ivers James. 



« Six editions up to 1S31. Reprinted also in his Life and Letters. 
' Reprinted in liis Municipal History of Boston. See 1798. 



40 APPENDIX. 

1840. — Power, Thomas. 

1841. — Curtis, George Ticknor. " The True Uses 

of American Revolutionary History." ^ 

1842. — Mann, Horace.' 

1843. — Adams, Charles Francis. 

1844. — Chandler, Peleg Whitman. " The Morals of 

Freedom." 

1845. — Sumner, Charles. '" " The True Grandeur of 

Nations." 

1846. — Webster, Fletcher. 

1847. — Cary, Thomas Greaves. 

1848. — Giles, Joel. "Practical Liberty." 

1849. — Greenough, William Whitwell. " The Con- 

quering Republic." 

1850. — Whipple, Edwin Percy.'' " Washington and 

the Principles of the Revolution." 

1851. — Russell, Charles Theodore. 

1852. — King, Thomas Starr. " The Organization of 

Liberty on the Western Continent." '* 

1853. — BiGELOw, Timothy.'* 

1854. — Stone, Andrew Leete.* 

1855. — Miner, Alonzo Ames. 

1856. — Parker, Edward Griffin. " The Lesson of 

'76 to the Men of '56." 



8 Delivered another oration in 1862. 

9 There are live editions ; only one by the City. 

10 Passed through three editions in Boston and one in London, and was answered in 
a pamphlet, Remarks upon an Oration delivered by Charles Sumner . . . , July 4th, 
1845. By a Citizen of Boston. See Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, by Edward 
L. Pierce, vol. ii. 337-384. 

" There is a second edition. (Boston : Ticknor, Reed, and Fields. 1850. 49 pp. 12".) 

12 First published by the City in 1892. 

13 This and a number of the succeeding orations, up to 1861, contain the speeches, 
toasts, etc., of the City dinner usually given in Faneuil Hall on the Fourth of July. 



APPENDIX 



41 



1857. — Alger, William Rounseville.'^ " The Genius 

and Posture of America." 

1858. — Holmes, John Somers.* 

1859. — Sumner, George.'* 

1860. — Everett, Edward. 

1861. — Parsons, Theophilus. 

1862. — Curtis, George Ticknor.* 

1863. — Holmes, Oliver Wendell.'* 

1864. — Russell, Thomas. 

1865. — Manning, Jacob Merrill. "Peace under Lib- 
erty." 

1866. — LoTHROP, Samuel Kjrkland. 

1867. — Hepworth, George Hughes. 

1868. —Eliot, Samuel. " The Functions of a City." 

1869. — Morton, Ellis Wesley. 

1870. — Everett, William. 

1871. — Sargent, Horace Binney. 

1872. — Adams, Charles Francis, Jun. 

1873. — Ware, John Fothergill Waterhouse. 

1874. — Frothingham, Richard. 

1875. — Clarke, James Freeman. 



" Probably four editions were printed in 1857. (Boston : Office Boston Daily Bee. 
60 pp.) Not until November 22, 1864, was Mr. Alger asked by the City to furnish a 
copy for publication. He granted the request, and the first otficial edition (J. E. Farwell 
& Co., 1864. 53 pp.) was then issued. It lacks the interesting preface and appendix of 
the early editions. 

15 There is another edition. (Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1859. 69 pp.) A third 
(Boston : Rockwell & Churchill, 1882. 46 pp.) omits the dinner at Faneuil Hall, the 
correspondence and events of the celebration. 

i« There is apreliminary editionof twelvecopies. (J. E. Farwell & Co., 1863. (7), 71 pp.) 
It is " the first draft of the author's address, turned into larger, legible type, for the sole 
purpose of rendering easier its public delivery." It was done by " the liberality of the 
City Authorities," and is, typographically, the handsomest of these orations. This re- 
sulted in the large-paper 75-page edition, printed from the same type as the 71 -page 
edition, but modified by the author. It is printed " by order of the Common Council." 
The regular edition is in 60 pp., octavo size. 



42 APPENDIX. 

1876. — "WiNTHBOP, Robert Charles." 

1877. — Warren, William Wirt. 

1878. — Healy, Joseph. 

1879. — Lodge, Henry Cabot. 

1880. — Smith, Robert Dickson.'® 

1881. — Warren, George Washington. "Our Repub- 
lic — Liberty and Equality Founded on Law." 

1882. — Long, John Davis. 

1883. — Carpenter, Henry Bernard. "American Char- 

acter and Influence." 

1884. — Shepard, Harvey Newton. 

1885. GrARGAN, ThOMAS JoHN. 

1886. — Williams, George Frederick. 

1887. — Fitzgerald, John Edward. 

1888. — DiLLAWAY, William Edward Lovell. 

1889. — Swift, John Lindsay.'® " The American Cit- 

izen." 

1890. — PiLLSBURY, Albert Enoch. " Public Spirit." 

1891. — QuiNCY, JosiAH.'" " The Coming Peace." 

1892. — Murphy, John Robert. 

1893. — Putnam, Henry Ware. "The Mission of our 

People." 
1894. — O'Neil, Joseph Henry. 
1895. — Berle, Adolph Augustus. "The Constitution 

and the Citizen." 

1' There is a large-paper edition of fifty copies printed from this type, and also an 
edition from the press of John Wilson & Son, 1876. 55 pp. 8". 

1* On Samuel Adams, a statue of whom, by Miss Anne Whitney, had just been com- 
pleted for the City. A photograph of the statue is added. 

1" Contains a bibliography of Boston Fourth of July orations, from 1783 to 1889, 
inclusive, compiled by Lindsay Swift, of the Boston Public Library. 

*" Reprinted by the American Peace Society. 



Jj)<^ 



